A general gaming blog with news, reviews, editorials, videos, and more!

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

The PS Vita slim: Better, Smaller, Pure Awesome

The original PS Vita had a few issues,
particularly the short battery life. This is one of the things that
was improved on with the release of the new PS Vita model referred to
as the slim. One look at this handheld console, and it is easy to
notice the difference. The slim is both thinner and lighter than the
original version. The other big difference is the change from an
OLED screen to LCD.

Image of the PS Vita slim.

When the PS Vita had first come out in
2012 in North America, I will admit that I didn't really pay much
attention to it. As far as I could tell, the Vita at the time didn't
have any games that interested me. But then when I saw the new slim
model, I looked up some games that looked interesting and pre-ordered
it. Oddly the only obvious way of getting the slim model of the PS
Vita is either getting a Japanese import or by buying the Borderlands
2 bundle which came out last week.

The Vita feels very comfortable in my
hands when I hold it. The fact that it was fairly light took some
getting used to, as it isn't anywhere near as bulky as my 3DS XL.
Not to mention the analog sticks are significantly improved over the
one on the PSP. My only issue is the fact that the memory cards are
rather small. The biggest available size for North America currently
is the 32GB but it is a bit on the expensive side.

As far as games go, they are now on
little cartridges as opposed to those bulky UMDs that were on the
PSP. This is a welcome change as the UMD loaded slowly and was
obnoxiously loud when it was loading. The game selection is fairly
good for the Vita as well, as I was able to find quite a few games
that I found interesting. There are even a few coming out later this
year like the English version of Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment.

I picked three games for my Vita.
Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster, Ragnarok Odyssey Ace, and Ys: Memory
of Celceta. While it was quite the neat experience to play a console
game like Final Fantasy X on a handheld device, I'd have to say that
my favorite game on the Vita currently would be Memory of Celceta. I
had played Ys: Origins on Steam and had a blast with it, so I was
more than happy to check out another game in that series. I'll
probably write a review for that game eventually.

Overall, I really have enjoyed the time
I've spent so far with the Playstation Vita. Some may regard it as a
failure that can't hold a candle to the Nintendo 3DS, but I think the
Vita is still in the game and has a solid shot of making it to the
top. Hopefully Sony will have something to show on the Vita at E3,
which would certainly help with its popularity.